


The Night King and the Queen of Winter

by qodarkness



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, post s803 - everything changes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22318078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qodarkness/pseuds/qodarkness
Summary: The Night King died.The Night King was eternal.
Relationships: Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark
Comments: 12
Kudos: 89





	The Night King and the Queen of Winter

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Diplomacy Fail](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22036705) by [Bacner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bacner/pseuds/Bacner). 



The Night King died. 

Arya Stark dropped her dagger from her hand and caught it and plunged it forwards and the Night King died.

The Night King was eternal. 

And in the less than a second he had before he ceased and shattered and ended, he reached out, reached into the dead and his past and the nearest, latest and he touched and…

The Night King died.

*****

Magic was slow. Ice was slow. Night was slow. Magic dripped through dead veins, blood that did not move except that the Night King was eternal and so were the dead. 

*****

Sansa Stark wept, her hands fluttering over the corpse of Theon Greyjoy, who had returned to her and died for her, and Bran, and Winterfell, and the living. Finally, she pulled the Stark pin from her breast, laced it within the kraken on Theon’s chest, and stepped away.

Jon Snow, King in the North, made his speech and Sansa did not hear it, her ears filled only with the white noise that said, “Theon is dead, Theon is dead,” and somehow his loss was the loss of everyone, all those from the North, all from her family, everyone she had ever loved.

Then the pyres were lit and the wood burned and the bodies burned and Theon Greyjoy…

Did not burn. 

Magic dripped through dead veins. Cold and slow until fire burned and ice burned and Theon Greyjoy…

Sat up. 

And turned towards the living. 

And opened eyes that glowed ice blue.

The sound of a hundred swords being drawn was nearly one sound.

But then Bran reached out and held Jon’s arm back. “No,” he said in his mild tone, but it was heard by all of them, the Three Eyed Raven’s power. Bran looked at Theon, wreathed within the fire, untouched by it. “This is what was meant to be.”

*****

Theon Greyjoy was dead. 

Maester Wolkan had confirmed it, confirmed that no blood ran through Theon’s veins, that his heart did not beat, his lungs drew no breath.

Theon Greyjoy sat at the great conference table, skin tinged pale blue, lips bluer, his eyes the bluest of all.

“Who are you?” asked Jon.

“I am Theon Greyjoy,” said Theon.

“He is the Night King,” said Bran, and the two of them looked at each other across the table.

“Yes,” they said, simultaneously.

“I am… both,” said Theon, and something approaching the Theon-that-was appeared on his face, as if the living Theon was finding his way back from death.

“We went to war to end the Night King,” pointed out Daenerys. “My child, Viserion, _died_ to end the Night King.”

“Yes,” said Bran. “And the Night King is ended.”

“The Night King is eternal,” replied Theon. “He cannot be ended. I was the last that died at his hand. When Arya stabbed him, he ended. I am not him.”

“But you are the Night King,” said Sansa, from her place opposite Theon.

He looked at her and, if not for the colour of his skin, the colour of his eyes, it was only Theon that looked back at her. “I’m Theon,” he said softly, only to her. “My name is Theon Greyjoy. Last surviving son of Balon Greyjoy, Lord of the Iron Islands. Theon.”

“I remember,” whispered Sansa.

“As do I,” responded Theon. “I am not him.”

“But he is the Night King,” said Bran. “The Night King that should be. The Night King that is needed.”

“Bran,” said Jon, clearly at the end of his patience. “We have hundreds of men who are going to storm into this room and slaughter Theon and possibly everyone else, if you don’t explain this _right now_. I know that the Three Eyed Raven enjoys being cryptic, but now is not the time.”

Bran looked at Jon in that way he had (that infuriating, inscrutable way) and then he nodded. “The Three Eyed Raven changes. Is made anew because it is needed. If the Raven is too long, then the Raven forgets what it means to be… human. So I was made. A new Raven.”

“But the Night King…” said Sansa, who hadn’t taken her eyes from Theon.

“Was eternal. He was supposed to be… something other than he was,” replied Bran.

“The Night King did not remember,” said Theon. “The Children of the Forest made him. They thought to kill the First Men, but that was not why they made him. The First Men were slaughtering the Children. The Night King was made to raise the dead, because that was all that the Children were left with to fight the First Men. But his purpose was not the dead. His purpose was to protect life. All life.”

“But he was the Night King for too long,” said Bran. “He… forgot what it meant. To be alive. To be… human. The dead… became his people.”

“To be human is to be frail. To fail,” said Theon. “The dead are… easy. Uncomplicated.”

“Why Theon?” Sansa asked, although she looked like she may know the answer already. “Why was he chosen?”

“I was the last,” replied Theon. “The closest. The easiest.”

“No,” replied Sansa. “This is what was meant to be, Bran said. You were chosen. Why?”

Jon and Daenerys flashed a look at Sansa, a look that said they saw, they noticed that she picked this puzzle apart as soon as it was presented to her. But Bran spoke then, and Sansa still looked at Theon, and no one noticed that look. 

“Theon has been unmade before. He has worn another name. Been made less than human. And he came back. He became Theon Greyjoy again. He is,” and for a moment, an all too human Bran, compassionate, looked from behind the Raven’s eyes, “the man who can remember to be Theon when it is easier to be someone else.”

Sansa nodded, then, and said nothing else, satisfied.

It was Jon, bewildered, who said, “But why?”

*****

The armies came down the kingsroad, heading towards King’s Landing and Cersei and the Lannister army. At Daenerys’ back rode the Dothraki, the Unsullied. High above, soared her dragons. At Jon and Sansa’s back rode the North and the Wildlings. And at Theon’s back rode a whisper, the army that could be, the army he could call if needed. The army of the dead. 

When the terms of her surrender were presented to her, Cersei (to no one’s surprise) said no and retreated back into the Red Keep.

“I will end her,” vowed Daenerys.

“No,” said Theon. “The Iron Fleet is yours. Euron Greyjoy is yours. End them.”

“But what of Cersei?” Ser Davos asked.

Theon inclined his head. “She is already accompanied by the dead,” he replied. “And so she is mine.”

Drogon and Rhaegal soared above Blackwater Bay, picking off ships one by one, almost lazily, avoiding the bolts from the scorpions with ease.

At the top of the Red Keep, Cersei Lannister watched, wondering why Daenerys did not seek to burn King’s Landing, made a tempting target for her.

Then Ser Gregor Clegane, the Mountain, long dead and not-dead turned towards her, raised his sword, and she watched it fall through the neck of Qyburn, her Hand.

“Ser Gregor,” said Cersei.

“Cersei,” said Ser Gregor, his voice rusty with disuse. “You should not have had the dead serve you. You would burn all of us for power and that is what i was made to stop.”

“Ser Gregor!” exclaimed Cersei. 

“He serves me now,” said the Mountain and it was his voice but not his words. “The Night King. He who rules the dead to save the living. You would kill all. And so he is made anew to end you.”

She pleaded, begged, in the time remaining to her, the time it took for the Mountain (dead and not-dead for so long) to cross the few paces between them. The Mountain, the Night King did not heed her pleas.

His sword fell. 

Ser Gregor fell, the Night King letting him go to his death at last. 

*****

It took longer to end it finally, Drogon and Rhaegal destroying the Golden Company, the men of the North stopping the Unsullied and the Dothraki from ending the Lannister armies.

Feasting went well into the weeks that followed, the Northmen stripping Lannisters and sellswords alike of armour and gold, giving them to the Dothraki to torment on their way back to Casterly Rock and the ignominy of defeat and poverty. 

The parley was held outside the gates of King’s Landing. Daenerys pressed her suit to rule the Seven Kingdoms, Jon Snow at her side. 

“No,” said the Three Eyed Raven.

“No,” said the Night King.

“Too long has Westeros tried to be one thing” said Bran. “The Seven Kingdoms, ruled by fire and blood, were not meant to be.” 

“There should be balance,” said Theon. “Fire and ice and earth and air.”

“The south for those ruled by fire and blood,” said Bran.

“Beyond the Wall for those ruled by ice and the dead,” said Theon.

“And earth and air between,” finished Bran. “The temper that balances them both.”

Daenerys fought against it, but in the end, counselled by Jon and Grey Worm and Missandei, recognised that she could not fight against the dead. Not when Theon watched her with eyes far more knowing than those of the Night King that had been, at the side of the Three Eyed Raven. 

“Beyond the wall is yours,” she said, and Theon nodded. “And the North yours,” she said to Bran, but he shook his head.

“There is no lordship in me, no King,” he said. “I seek only to advise. You have taken the King in the North as your own and Jon Snow cannot give his divided loyalties to the North. Sansa Stark shall be Queen in the North, the Queen of Winter.”

Daenerys swallowed that pill bitterly, but swallow it she did. 

They thought the parley was ended until Theon spoke again. “I ask, Your Grace,” he said to Daenerys. “That you keep your oath to my sister. That the Iron Islands be free.” 

Yara Greyjoy turned to her little brother, went to say something, but didn’t when he turned his eyes, ice blue, upon her. 

Daenerys looked at him, at Yara, the dead and the living. “She made an oath to me,” she said. 

“No more reaving,” said Theon. “No raiding, no raping. If any from the Iron Islands come to your Kingdoms and do those things, then they have broken their own oaths to my sister and I will raise the dead to end them.”

“And I will raise the North to end them,” echoed Sansa. “I support Queen Yara in her plea for independence.’ 

Daenerys’ eyes narrowed, but at last she nodded. “I hold to my oath,” she said, and Yara punched Theon hard in the arm in triumph, and only realised what she had done when she felt the frost spill from her knuckles onto the hot floor of the parley ground. 

*****

Theon Greyjoy returned to Winterfell with Sansa Stark, a long journey made short by companionship, conversation, memories and hard-forged bonds. 

It all became real to her when it came time to say farewell, to send Theon beyond the Wall to his icy kingdom, to the dead. 

“I… do not want you to go,” she whispered, as they sat alone before the fire in the great audience hall, even Bran finally leaving them to go to bed. 

“I don’t want to leave you,” he replied. 

“I wish…,” started Sansa and stopped. “You are dead,” she said. “How can I love the dead?”

“You don’t love the dead,” said Theon. “No more than I love the living. I love Sansa Stark, Queen in the North, Queen of Winter.” He looked at her, and his skin rippled, a wave of cold and rime slipping over his skin, a shift in him. “I am not just flesh now, but knit from the oldest of magic. I can remake myself to be… what is needed. I need only,” and his hand reached out, a cold finger lightly touching the pulse that fluttered wildly in her wrist, “to borrow a sliver of your warmth.”

She did not take her eyes from his as she nodded, and then shivered as, for a moment, she felt cold ripple through her veins and Theon’s skin went from blue to pink. His lips, when they met hers, were warm. And when she took him upstairs, to her bed, and undressed him, he wore no scars, his flesh warm against hers, until it was hot against hers, inside hers, heat and fire and life, everything that was life, and she called out only Theon’s name in ecstasy and he responded only, “Sansa, Sansa, Sansa,” until he spilled inside of her and neither of them remembered, for a time, that he was dead. 

*****

“I cannot marry him,” she said to her Hand.

“Why not?” Bran responded. 

“He’s dead!” cried Sansa. “I need heirs. The North needs heirs. And he is King… of another Kingdom. The North has stood for centuries against the Night King! I cannot marry him!”

“The North stood against the Night King that was,” replied Bran. “Not Theon. He needs to remember what it is to be human. What is more human than to love? To be a husband? To be a father?” He looked at Sansa, a long and steady look. “He needs only to borrow a fraction of your warmth. Would the North begrudge him that?”

*****

In summer they lived on the far edges of the North, just above the Wall. In winter they lived at Winterfell. The Northmen made noises when the marriage was proposed, but those ended when they realised that the dead would not fight them, but defend them against all comers. And when their King and Queen lived in the other kingdom, their Hands, Bran Stark and Tormund Giantsbane proved more than adequate at administering the needs of the North and the wildlings (and when they met, Tormund conceded that he had it considerably easier, what with the wildlings mostly telling him to fuck off and leave them alone to do what they willed).

The twins were born in Winterfell, under the care of Maester Wolkan and Samuel Tarly, sent up by Jon Targaryen to care for his sister. They had thought, as was usual, to send Theon away to drink and wait, but he turned ice blue eyes upon them and they let him stay.

The twins were boy and girl. “Heir to the North,” said Sansa, stroking the small thatch of red hair that crowned the first-born girl’s head. 

“And heir to beyond the Wall,” said Theon as the boy opened eyes, ice blue, and gazed upon his father.

Sansa looked at Theon then, puzzled. “You need no heir,” she said gently. “The Night King is eternal.” 

Theon looked at her, a steady gaze, ice that was fire in his eyes. “You think I would walk this earth a day past your ending, my Queen of Winter?” he said, softly. “The Night King has his heir. The Night King can end and be remade anew when I am gone.”

*****

It ended in Winterfell, in the warmth of summer, long years past the ending of the Last War, long years since their children, all of them, were long grown and married themselves, grandchildren scattered across Westeros and even into Essos. 

Sansa’s hair had long turned white and Theon had remade himself, over and over, so he could keep himself in time with her aging, although both knew that he had no need to do so. 

It had started in her chest, a heaviness, a shortness of breath, and she knew that it was ending. Theon, who knew death better than anyone, had felt it coming and was by her side. 

“So this is it,” she said. “At last.”

“At last,” said Theon. 

“I’ll miss you,” she said and he smiled, unexpectedly.

“Like you’ll have the chance,” he said, fondly, then grew serious again. “Do you want…” he started, and stopped.

“What?” Sansa asked. 

“I borrowed your warmth,” he said. “So many times. Do you want to borrow mine? At the ending.”

She looked at him for a long time and then finally nodded. “Yes,” she said. “For the ending.”

He drew it up then, inside himself, almost all of the warmth the oldest of magic had given him and spilled it into both of them, an ecstatic release of nearly everything he was.

“Is that better?” Theon asked, his curls bronze against his cheeks, his skin smooth again.

“So much better,” said Sansa, her red hair spilling over her shoulders, her eyes clear and blue as the day they had married, as full of love as they had been then. “I’ll wait for you, Theon Greyjoy. Don’t be long.”

He told Bran what had happened, told their daughter, and then went to the Godswood, where his oldest son waited, knowing already what had happened, a part of the Night King’s magic in him since he was born. 

“Robb,” said Theon. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” replied his son, his eyes as clear and blue as his namesake. “I’m ready. I’ve always been ready.” 

Theon had held back the smallest part of himself from the magic that had remade Sansa, but he let that go now, released it into his son, felt Robb’s heart stop, felt the Night King’s last magic leave him. 

“She’s not far. She’s waiting for you,” said the Night King and Theon nodded and let go of himself, felt his body cease and end and shatter. 

The Night King stayed in the land of the living, the guardian that used the dead to shield them. 

Theon Greyjoy moved onwards, into the unknown, into the place where the dead went. 

Sansa was waiting for him there. She took his hand and they went onwards, unafraid of what was waiting for them.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So, this all arose from a throwaway line from Bacner in a joyfully silly one shot. And turned into something epic in my head. I would love to write this properly - really truly properly - but know that I CANNOT do another multi-chapter epic. 
> 
> I’m quite chuffed I managed to keep it to a one-shot. Go me!
> 
> Additional notes: so I originally posted this around 1am on a work night when I was somewhat delirious with lack of sleep, so my notes were rather limited. So I thought (now that I’m awake and functional) that I’d fill in a little more about my inspiration (other than Bacner’s line that started the whole thing!). So I finally finished Season 8 and... um, wow. The Night King was WASTED. After all of that build up and mystery to just have him end like that felt like a terrible cheat, so that to me wanting a way to drive his story forwards and having a handover (as the Three Eyed Raven does) seemed a way to manage that. The Night King also made no sense in context of the The Children of the Forest, who were definitely ecologically minded. Creating someone who wanted to encase the world in endless winter seemed antithetical to his creators. But if the Night King had been ice and dead for too long, unchanging, becoming less and less human and more and more a part of the dead, that move away from the purpose of his creators made more sense. 
> 
> Then there was the fantastic poster for Season 7 (which I have as my phone case) of Theon as a wight/White Walker that made me want to have a reason for that to exist. And Theon was the last to die at the Night King’s hand, the closest - right there when the Night King ceased to be... I also loved the visual of Theon sitting up at the mass funeral and the effect that would have had. 
> 
> In terms of marrying Sansa/being a father, there’s both the legend of the Night’s King (the 13th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch) who was said to have married a female White Walker and rumours that wildling women will sleep with Others to have half-human/half-Other children - both of which indicate that the Others have both sexual drive and can father children. As the Night King is the first and foremost Other, knit together of magic and able to reshape himself (noting the crown, for example), I pulled all of that together into a Night King Theon whose love for Sansa allows him both to remember his humanity, rather than lose it, can father children and is able to do things other White Walkers can’t, such as travel in sunny daylight and into warmer lands. Basically, Theon takes winter with him always. His magic also allows him to survive being warm-blooded but there’s nothing he can draw on to create that - he needs to borrow warmth from others for that magic to work. 
> 
> And Bran and Theon are balanced - the Three Eyed Raven and Night King not as enemies but as counterbalances. 
> 
> I really honestly would love to explore this idea and the lifelong adventures of Night King Theon and the Queen of Winter Sansa in much more detail but I need to finish at least a couple of my other multi-chapter epics before I do that to myself!


End file.
